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Chinese Crack Down on Child Labor
The Chinese government rescued a hundred kids as young as 13 years old from factories where they were forced to work up to 300 hours a month. The police in China have created special squads to find companies suspected of using underage workers. There are even stories of thousands of kids being sold as slaves to work in mines.
China's economy is growing rapidly. The more things the world buys from China, the more factories open, and the more workers they need in those factories. Even though there are many jobs in parts of China, there are other parts where people are very poor. That's where some companies find kids who are desperate for work. Even though the legal age for a worker is 16, the lawbreaking companies make big promises to the kids and then lock them up and put them to work for little pay and no time off.
In some ways, the situation in China is like it was in America a hundred years ago. Back then, a photographer named Lewis Hine took pictures of American kids working in harsh conditions in mines and factories. Eventually, the United States made labor laws that protected kids from those kinds of working conditions. It looks like China needs to do the same for kids there.
I'm Michelle and that's what happened in the world this week.
Photo: AP
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